Critical Practice in an Age of Complexity | Conference Abstracts Due

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - 5:00pm

Every generation of architects, urban designers, planners and artists engaged with the built environment face a set of seemingly intractable and isolated problems particular to their time. Mid 19th Century city planners addressed questions of public health while architects engaged in a ‘battle of the styles’. Early 20th century architects argued for a ‘contemporary style’ while architects / urban designers created visions of cities in the sky. By the 1970s ecological forerunners argued for a future of sustainable living while post-modernists looked to the past for aesthetics.

Today, Donald Trump promises investment in infrastructure while simultaneously relaxing environmental regulations and targets. China continues to urbanize and pollute while industrial cities in the West continue to decline and ‘go green’. Internationally, global cities of commerce can be surrounded by slums and in many cities housing is unaffordable as a place of living while it functions as a major form of capital investment. This all happens against a backdrop of the arts and cultural industries seen as economic motors, conflicting media representations of urbanization, and the emergence of new medias altering the experience and forms of reporting on life in cities.

To design and understand the built environment in the middle of this complexity and contradiction requires reflection and vision. It also requires critique and multiple practices.

THEMES & FORMATS

Using various discipline perspectives as broad strands, conference presentations will be organized in several sub themes. The result will be a coherent but varied conference. To make the event as inclusive as possible, delegates can attend in-person but can also avoid travel costs by making their presentation as a pre-recorded film. It will be permanently available via the AMPS Youtube channel. Alternatively, they can present virtually via skype. In all cases, written papers are also acceptable.

ABSTRACTS & REGISTRATION

Please send the fully completed abstract form to info@architecturemps.com | The document must be in Microsoft Word. | Subject line for emails: Abstract Submission UoA | File name for attachment: Name_Surname_Summary Title_UoA | Example file name: Charlie_Smith_Yet Another Apartment Block_UoA

More information on the conference and how to submit abstracts may be found here.